Good Grief

Happy Hump Day, everybody. I want to talk a little more about things that "Reign Over Me" got me thinking about. it's a movie about grief, plain and simple. But, also, it shows how much we as people need each other.

Grief is a funny thing because noone ever knows how a person is going to react to it. In the movie, part of it's appeal to me, Adam Sandler's character surrounds himself, engulfs himself, protects himself with music. He buys records, THOUSANDS OF THEM, buys guitars and drums and is only comfortable with his headphones on. Oh yeah, and he also never mentions or lets anyone else in his life mention that he had a family once. You just never know what people are going to do when faced with loss.

The common response by any person of faith is that loss somehow happens for a reason or is part of God's plan. This response, personally, makes me sick. To think that there's a reason for a child's death, for violent death, for preventable death, or even to think that these deaths somehow work into God's plans for us, is absurdity in my eyes. But, that's the trick. What I think doesn't matter, doesn't mean a thing, to the person actually doing the grieving. What we as friends of the grieving must do is help the person find that thing that helps them. And if knowing that their loved ones death has a reason, a purpose, helps someone then we can have no complaint.

Grief sucks. Loss sucks. Death sucks. But we HAVE to experience it. It's one of those things that makes us human. Now, I've been pretty lucky in that I've only lost two grandparents. And I was young when it happened. But I've been through the loss of long term relationships, the loss of a secure job, things like that.

Here's what I've learned. Until we face the fact of our loss, confront it, embrace it, we will not learn from it, grow from it, or be stronger for it. We have two choices when faced with grief. Deny it and lose ourselves in the undertow too powerful for anyone to fight alone. Or face it, embrace it, sit in the dark and cry for three hours-and I mean the gasping for breath, snot running down the face kind of crying, the crying that makes you forget where you are or what you did-and become stronger, a more complete person.

A friend recently told me of a plaque she once saw that read: When God closes a door, He opens a window...but the hallway between the two can be hell.

I put it this way: Behind every cloud there IS silver lining, but there's still one big badass storm on the way.

Go see the movie. I'm interested in hearing your reactions to it, and any personal reflections on grief that you may offer.

Don't run away, don't hide, don't deny. Embrace it. That's the only way.

B